#VU39344 Out-of-bounds read in Binutils - CVE-2017-7304

Vulnerability identifier: #VU39344

Vulnerability risk: Medium

CVSSv4.0: 6.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Green]

CVE-ID: CVE-2017-7304

CWE-ID: CWE-125

Exploitation vector: Network

Exploit availability: No

Vulnerable software:
Binutils
Universal components / Libraries / Libraries used by multiple products

Vendor: GNU

Description

The vulnerability allows a remote non-authenticated attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.

The Binary File Descriptor (BFD) library (aka libbfd), as distributed in GNU Binutils 2.28, is vulnerable to an invalid read (of size 8) because of missing a check (in the copy_special_section_fields function) for an invalid sh_link field before attempting to follow it. This vulnerability causes Binutils utilities like strip to crash.

Mitigation
Install update from vendor's website.

Vulnerable software versions

Binutils: 2.28

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External links
https://www.securityfocus.com/bid/97215
https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=20931

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Q & A

Can this vulnerability be exploited remotely?

Yes. This vulnerability can be exploited by a remote non-authenticated attacker via the Internet.

Is there known malware, which exploits this vulnerability?

No. We are not aware of malware exploiting this vulnerability.